MALAYSIA is a friend of China. Malaysia was the first country from Southeast Asia to recognise China as early as 1973. In contrast, South Korea established its full diplomatic relationship with China only after the end of the Cold War in 1992.
As for Asean, of which Malaysia is a founder on Aug 8, 1967, the entity went one step further to convene the Asean Regional Forum in 1994, which invariably included all the great powers, especially the United States, Russia and China.
China's excellent diplomatic behaviour included the ascension to many international instruments, including to curb the spread of chemical, biological and radiological weapons (CBRN). But since the Sept 11 attacks of 2001, China has acknowledged the problem of "catastrophic terrorism", coined by Ashton Carter, a former US secretary of defence, who is a professor of political science at the Kennedy School of Government.
Whereas the US does have a problem with Guantanamo Bay, where suspected terrorists are detained, usually without due process of the US law, the US detention orders are subjected to legal challenge. Had former president Barack Obama been more decisive, Guantanamo would be abolished by now. President Donald Trump opted to keep it.
The issue is not over one prison centre over another. It is about policy. In the case of China, leaked China Cables to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism, a respectable body with some 289 of the best journalists on board, are discerning a widescale crackdown of the Uighur Muslims, for often on the most frivolous reasons, such as having a WhatsApp app installed on one's phone, travelling to perform the hajj or making calls and visits to their relatives in Istanbul.
Despite thorough journalistic accounts of these reporters on the problems of China's blanket crackdown on Uighur Muslims, especially Kashgar, they have been dismissed as fake news or propaganda. China is in deep denial that it is in contravention of the Geneva Convention.
Indeed, scholars such as Dr Andrian Zenz, a German scholar who is an expert on Tibet, and now Xinjiang too, has found more evidence of forced sterilisation of the female Uighur Muslims incarcerated in detention camps.
Such a policy verges on sheer cultural genocide, the right to have one's next generation denied. Students who returned from any Islamic colleges or universities abroad would have their passports confiscated and sent to what Chinese authorities called the "re-education" camp.
Taking into account that China's Belt and Road Initiative involves 67 countries, 30 of which are predominantly Muslim, it is high time that China examined its gross mistreatment of the Uighur Muslims. Focus on winning their hearts and minds. Not by sending people into camps, allegedly to be brainwashed into party-loving members.
The number of prisoners now hover between one million and two million out of 12 million indigenous people in Xinjiang. Regardless how one sees it, this is not a policy but a blunt political instrument akin to using the hammer to kill a fly, an ethnic and cultural cleansing. China must stop this. The world must ensure China stops this.
The writer is president and chief executive officer of Emir Research, an independent think tank focused on strategic policy recommendations based on rigorous research